


Around The World In Two Pairs Of Ice Skates

by nuclearchinchilla



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fluff, M/M, Romantic Comedy, Sitcom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 12:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13998441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuclearchinchilla/pseuds/nuclearchinchilla
Summary: Viktor went suspiciously quiet.“Whatever you’re thinking of,” Yuuri warned aloud, “don’t do it.”





	Around The World In Two Pairs Of Ice Skates

**Author's Note:**

> This is a piece which is also a contribution to the Heartbeats zine. 
> 
> Download it here: https://heartbeatszine.itch.io
> 
> Comments are welcome.

**Alternatively: 5 Things (Almost) No One Knew About Yuuri (+1 No One Knew About Viktor)**

 

  1. **Yuuri knows a random man outside the V.A. [USA]**



 

“I need 7 dollars.”

 

“I don’t have my wallet with me,” Yuuri said honestly. He leaves his stuff behind all the time.

 

“Yuuri!”

 

The familiar and deceptively cheerful voice catches him unaware. His gaze turns upwards from the knife held inches away from his gut. He glimpses Viktor’s grin, all white teeth, too wide and blinding in the dim alley. Too near- neither he nor Harold, the man who needs seven whole dollars, had heard another soul walk down the path.

 

Suddenly, Viktor’s nearer still, and the sort-of mugger has his dominant arm twisted behind his back, his knife clattering to the ground. Viktor darts down with an almost-impossible speed and grace to pluck it up. His grin hasn’t slipped. The rest of the skaters are still gaping somewhere at the mouth of the alley.

 

“Viktor, he’s a homeless vet. Don’t try to stab Harold,” Yuuri chided, “Los Angeles, 2015. Do you remember? He has a tenuous grip on reality and two rabbits.”

 

“Oh yeah, Harold!” Viktor instantly brightened up, his smile thawing as he handed over the knife, “How are Chips and Concrete doing? I’m more of a dog man myself.”

 

“I like dogs too,” said Harold. He had been told by his therapist that it was healthy to express his wants and needs.

 

No one else questions how they both know a random homeless vet in L.A.

 

  1. **Yuuri really, really likes one gelato shop [Italy]**



 

“We’ve been walking around in circles!” Yurio was this close to wailing, “We’ve seen that gelato shop five times. Five! Are you sure it’s not that one? Are. You. Sure?” He received no reply. The cutesy neon shop sign just stared at him innocently. He glared at it.

 

It was smack dab the middle of winter, pitch dark out, they were as lost as a trio of gazelles in Siberia, and they were all five hours ahead of the current time zone. _You’re a weak Russian_ , he imagines Lila’s voice, _not worthy of being called a Russian_. He just grumbled at the thought and retreated his head further into his six layers.

 

“Mmm, it’s really not that one,” Yuuri eventually replied, dragging himself out of thought, and being way more stubborn than his easy tone let on.

 

“We have to go there. We always do when we go to Florence,” Viktor explained, a soppy look entering his eyes.

 

 _Why does it matter?_ Yurio’s thoughts shrieked in hysterics, _It’s so cold right now that all ice cream in the world must taste the same. Why must you have that particular shop? Why? What in god’s name happened in there?_

 

It turned out to be that shop they kept passing by, after all. _Renovations_ , the owner said apologetically. _I liked it better the old way_ , is what Viktor wants to say. _I will cut you and I will cut all of you_ , is what Yurio wants to say.

 

 _Maybe it’s a mob front_ , he fantasized, _maybe they always need to come here to settle some mob deals or whatever. Maybe there’ll be knives at some point. Actual ones._

 

But that can’t be it. You’d think the mob can afford some damn heaters.

 

Yuuri ordered something green. Viktor immediately said he wants that too, and to change the order to a double scoop.

 

“It’s pistachio,” Yuri pointed out, “you’re just saying that because it costs less to get a double scoop of the same flavour.” Even Yurio know Viktor hates pistachio.

 

“What do you mean?” Viktor said, his expression of trepidation betraying his voice, “It’s...green. And nutty. I like that. I like it as much as you do.”

 

“You don’t have to,” Yuuri said gently, in the same tone Viktor uses when Yuuri says yeah he totally likes Bond films too. Viktor relented and ordered something else. It takes forever because Yuuri can speak Italian, and Yurio is too tired to question that, only to curse that Yuri’s Italian does not in fact expedite the process. It does the opposite because apparently he’s familiar with the owner, and the owner makes some sickeningly sweet shipper noises (two days hiking with Phichit makes Yurio learn things, terrible things) and there’s a whole conversation about god knows what. He rolled his eyes.

 

He’s torn about asking the story of this place, when Viktor started doing something obscene with his popsicle while looking pointedly at Yuuri. Yurio gave up and sank his head into his mittens.

 

  1. **Yuuri really really hates “What Makes You Beautiful” [UK]**



 

_“Baby you light up my world like-”_

 

“No,” Yuuri said firmly.

 

“What?”

 

“No, no, no,” Yuuri repeated, sounding slightly closer to slipping into hysterics, “Switch the station. Switch it.”

 

Viktor turned to him with a concerned look. Yuuri just gave him a flat stare. Phichit switched the radio station.

 

“Chesire, 2016,” Yuuri said, not-really-explaining.

 

But that clicked in Viktor’s head, and he gave Yuuri a sunshine smile as gently glowing as the morning sun rising over the convertible.

 

“What happened in Chesire in 2016?” Phichit asked warily.

 

One of the paparazzi crowding around their vehicle, visibly paled. Viktor grinned at him. It was his dangerous grin. Whatever was going on, that man knew, and Viktor knew he knew. Phichit suddenly felt like he didn’t want to know.

 

That man was a gossip reporter named Lewis, and he definitely remembered. He was trying to chase a story out of the power couple, the “Brangelina on Ice” they would have been called, if Brangelina was still a thing. For all that Yuuri was all sharp edges of grace and poise on ice, he was usually shy and demure off it, and for all that Viktor talked and talked, he was far too good at talking about nothing. They made no secret about being in love, and being engaged, but with the exception of Yuuri’s initial romantic declaration to the public, there was little to go on. Lewis didn’t just want to make a listicle where he cooed over publicly available Instagram pictures and called it a day. He wanted a scoop, maybe even a scandal.

 

So he had tailed them into the remote English countryside, where they were holidaying in the off-peak season, and hounded them every day of that week with questions. There were only two little cottages near each other, and nothing and no one else for miles and miles. Through a window in his bedroom, he could observe their study, but there was usually nothing to see there. That day, Yuuri was reading a book in the armchair, and Viktor was fiddling with his phone on the other side of the room.

 

He could stay here for another few days, but he had half the mind to just make up something for his report. Then, it started.

 

For the first few times it played, blasting at full volume over speakers placed on the windowsill, he hadn’t minded. It was a repetitive teenybopper pop song, but it was catchy and benign. Yuuri just continued reading, the same tranquil expression fixed on his face. Viktor shook his leg slightly to the beat.

 

But then it played on and on. And on. At some point, the couple got up and choreographed an entire dance routine. They were obviously having a good time with that, laughing good-naturedly at each other’s missteps and practicing dramatic twirls. But by then, Lewis was pretty run down. He was starting to actually pick apart the mindless song, line by line, treating the lyrics as if they were a serious socio-political stance or at least as if they held some great secret. _Why does the singer of the song love that the girl doesn’t know she’s beautiful?_ he thought, _why does the speaker romanticise her insecurity? The joyous melody is certainly at odds with this insidiously disturbing depiction of an unhealthy relationship._ At some point, both Viktor and Yuuri put on noise-cancelling headphones. And in the night, they just straight-up left the room and left the speaker playing.

 

“24 hours of ‘What Makes You Beautiful’, non-stop,” was all he said to Phichit, with the grave tone of someone standing before a congressional hearing. Then he walked away, a man defeated.

 

  1. **Yuuri puts jam in his tea [Russia]**



 

“What?” Phichit spluttered.

 

“What?” Yuuri replied, but in a much different, far more nonchalant tone, as if putting jam in your tea was completely natural and something he did ever since he was a baby.

 

Yuuri didn’t put sandwich spreads in his tea in Detroit. Phichit knows this. He remembers this. He’s not crazy. Another blob of gooseberry jam slips into the tea. The spoon clinked loudly against porcelain as Yuuri set it down. Phichit’s right eye twitched.

 

“I’m blaming Viktor,” Phichit decided. He’s learnt by now that if something strange and inexplicable happens around him, it’s usually Viktor’s fault.

 

“Funny you should say that,” Yuuri said, that certain dreamy tone entering his voice. He plopped some jam into Viktor’s tea. Viktor took the spoon and licked it. They stared at each other dreamily in their silence. Phichit stabbed at his biscuit. The universe was conspiring to make him regret his ship, there could be no other possibility. It’s gonna be milk in bags next, he thought.

 

Russia, 2017. It was a blizzard, because there’s always a blizzard going on somewhere in Russia. The planes couldn’t take off, cars couldn’t start and they were stuck inside Viktor’s house for days. Jam in tea may not be something Yuuri usually considered sane, but left with nothing to do inside one house for so long, he would try anything that felt different. At least it was a good drink after all, and he was stuck with the best person to be with, in the best place he could ask for. It was pretty bad weather- he still remembered the chill that curled into him like tendrils. The heaters could only do so much, but his skin would be hot and clammy, but he would still be cold inside. Oh, there were ways to warm up though- hot tea with jam that would slither warmth down his throat, easy conversation that split his lips into a smile by the fireside, bursts of warmth that would blossom in him when it was night and he rubbed against Viktor’s-

 

He choked on air, and gulped down some tea to mask his spluttering. Phichit stabbed again at his biscuit.

 

The rest of the day, they played Risk. To everyone’s bewilderment, Yuuri and Viktor beat them all solidly into the dust. Yuuri said their skill has something to do with That Blizzard as well. Phichit had regained his faith in humanity (well, more like faith in shipping), so he helpfully pointed out that they could have just screw more instead of playing Risk those few days. Yuuri looked thoughtful. Viktor winked and said something about conquering territories. Yurio flipped the board.

 

  1. **Yuuri can only cook 1 (one) dish [Poland]**



 

The crowd had been figuratively held hostage for four hours. The fire alarm had gone off thrice, and one time Viktor emerged entirely covered in flour and giggling, unable to answer any question without breaking down in laughter. The couple had insisted on cooking dinner for the skaters together, even though they tried cooking for themselves every Saturday and according to Yuuri’s mournful tones every Saturday night, it was always a disaster. Phichit was starting to think they just bonded over trashing the kitchen itself. Viktor was a good coach, but you can’t teach someone to cook if you can’t do it yourself either, so it was always the blind leading the blind.

 

“There was an accident in the kitchen,” Yuuri explained. It was near ten in the night.

 

“Only Olivye survived,” Yuuri continued, “the Polish one.”

 

Olivye sounded worryingly like a person. Yuuri set the large dish down. Well, it was certainly not a person. But it was certainly something where the chief ingredient was mayonnaise, or at least some white substance that approached mayonnaise.

 

Somehow, that didn’t feel much better to Phichit. Yurio just sighed. Whatever Yurio knew, he didn’t like it, but that statement generally applied to him anyway.

 

Phichit took a cautious bite. It was- it was actually really good. He felt like reeling. For someone who could burn water, Yuuri was suspiciously excellent at this strange salad. There were apples in it. There were apples and mayonnaise in the same bowl, yet somehow, by some twist of likely malevolent magic, it tasted good. Viktor looked close to having some sort of religious experience.

 

“Yuuri, this is better every time you make it,” Viktor said in awe.

 

There was a pause.

 

“This is Viktor’s favorite dish, isn’t it?” Yurio wondered aloud. It was a tone of accusation. “This is the only thing you can make, because it’s his favorite dish, isn’t it?”

 

“Yurio, how did you know!” Viktor beamed. On anyone else, that tone was so bright, it might have been sarcastic.

 

“His Polish babushka taught me the dish. She wouldn’t let me go until I could perfect it. I think I can still hear her scathing tone when it’s dark at night or whenever I cook the dish,” Yuuri shuddered, “Ballet instructors are scary. People think they’re girly and gentle and demure, but trust me. You do not want to cross them, and you do not want to make them a bad Salatka Jarzynowa.”

 

“Yes, I know,” Yurio nodded, his tone changing to one of complete and sincere understanding. He momentarily glanced to the back of the room, as if he could catch the spectre of Lila haunting the dinner table.

 

**+1 Viktor is certified [Japan]**

 

“Thanks. Ahhh...ahhh...oh god that feels really good,” Yuuri moaned loudly, flushed all over.

 

“We should change the skating routine. Your back keeps getting sore,” Viktor considered as he kneaded his hands into the flesh of Yuuri’s back.

 

“Then I wouldn’t- oh yes right there- get these massages,” he pointed out, “and they’re really good. If I wanted them any better, I bet I’d have to burn through my wallet to pay.”

 

Viktor went suspiciously quiet.

 

“Whatever you’re thinking of,” Yuuri warned aloud, “don’t do it.”

 

That was two whole years ago.

 

“Never have I ever…” Yuuri trailed off. It was a lazy Friday night. The room was filled with vodka bottles, but still filled more with aromatherapy bottles. He had gotten used to that heady smell of fragrant oils by now. Their visitors probably hadn’t gotten used to it, but they hadn’t asked either. They had apparently learnt some strange lesson about asking questions.

 

“...become a certified masseuse,” Yuuri settled on saying.

 

Viktor put a finger down.

 

“...is this an euphemism,” Phichit asked, a glint in his eyes. He couldn’t help it. “Is this an euphemism for something?”

 

“It’s really not,” Yuuri said helplessly.


End file.
